Most Westport Library users remember the River of Names historical bas-relief ceramic donor tile mural. Until the Westport Library’s 2019-2020 renovation, it graced the Riverwalk level hallway. Admirers included nearly 2,000 donors who in 1997-98 contributed $350,000 to commission award-winning artist and sculptor, Marion Grebow, to create the work, along with the tens of thousands who visited each year, often accompanied by awed children or grandchildren, or envious out-of-town visitors. The 84 “picture tiles” and their brief captions offered a glimpse at four centuries of local history. Plus — if one stood close to the installed mural, at the far end, looking west across the surface toward the Saugatuck–the light shimmered on the gleaming white bas-relief wave tiles, just like moonlight on the river.
With patience and trust, since 2019 — when the Library hired a fine arts firm to remove the River of Names to safe, temporary storage to facilitate a new round of construction — these admirers have awaited its return.
After all, isn’t this work a Library-owned asset? Doesn’t the Library receive 75 percent of its annual budget from Town taxpayers, and do right by its donors and patrons?
However, in a letter last week to Stephen Nevas, attorney for mural artist, Marion Grebow, Attorney Alan Neigher, on behalf of Jeremy Price, President, Westport Library Association, Board of Trustees, conveyed that the Westport Library was terminating its River of Names storage contract and ordering that the popular work of public art, a 6’2″ x 26’4″ historical ceramic donor tile mural with 1,927 donor surfaces on 1,162 separate tiles, be “disposed of,” no later than Jan. 15, 2023.
Wait! Isn’t this the same 1998 River of Names ceramic bas-relief mural that the Library paid a fine arts firm to remove in 2019 and store temporarily, in a fine arts storage facility, until library renovation and construction were complete? Isn’t this the mural with 84 bas-relief, historical “picture tiles” depicting four centuries of iconic moments, architecture and themes from the history of what today is Westport? The one with 50 rows and 29 columns of 2’x6″ gleaming white bas-relief “wave” tiles (993 in all)? And eighty-five 5″x12″ bas-relief bookshelf tiles, each with 10 book spines, bearing donor names?
Yes.
But this also is the same mural that the Library Executive Director and Board then said could never return to the renovated building because their plan never asked for a single flat wall for it.
Instead, near the Children’s section, as consolation, they offered a digital database flat-screen display of the individual River of Names tiles so that young patrons could search for tile photos by donor name or subject. It now is dark.
And then — after construction was complete, and immediately following Town approval on Oct. 13, 2021 of a new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy — the Library outright sought to banish its return on the grounds of DEI content failure, with correspondence solicited from the Westport Museum of History and Culture (10/22/21), TEAM Westport (11/4/21) and the Westport Arts Advisory Council (11/11/21). In general, these organizations noted that 84 briefly captioned images were not a comprehensive, inclusive history of Westport. Of course, they never were meant to be. And the tiles depicting Native Americans relied on photographic source material from exhibit curators at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, before it even opened to the public.
And then, on the Library website, the text reference for Marion Grebow’s 3-dimensional ceramic donor tile mural initially became “the tile wall,” with no artist credit. Now, it is “River of Names Interactive.” What does that mean? Where is the artist credit or the history or meaning of this work’s creation?
According to Marion Grebow’s attorney, he “has been warned that unless her family agrees to pay for storage or immediately takes custody of the 26-foot ceramic wall, it will be destroyed no later than January 15, 2023.”
What would Marion Grebow think?
In 1997-98, former Second Selectman, Betty Lou Cummings, and I, as an RTM-appointed Westport Library Trustee, were volunteer co-chairs of the River of Names Community Capital Campaign. We worked very closely with Marion Grebow on every detail of every one of the mural’s sculptural images and 1,927 donor spaces. In 2019, despite her concerns for the mural’s structural fragility, it was cut by experts into 6 pieces and removed to storage as the library renovation commenced. Meanwhile, Marion was battling terminal cancer. Knowing that her end was approaching, she planned her own graveside service. In February, 2020, a few weeks before the Covid lockdown, Betty Lou Cummings and I stood on the peaceful frozen hillside of Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding, as a lone soloist rose to sing one song in the frigid air. Apparently, it was Marion’s favorite: Moon River.
Dorothy E. Curran
Westport
Thank you, Dorothy, for reminding us all about the history of this tile mural. My parents were among the many residents who purchased a tile. I loved looking at it as I passed by.
I’m both heartbroken and outraged by the pending fate of the mural. We don’t destroy the artwork of the masters because the images no longer depict the realities we know today (think portraits of Jesus Christ as an example). There are plenty of large walls at Town Hall where the mural could be rehung – the lobby or the area just outside the entry doors to the auditorium come to mind.
And perhaps those concerned with revising the history depicted in the mural can spearhead a fundraiser for an adjacent plaque that could explain the omissions and/or add the revisions that we might have made if it was commissioned today. This could provide a better teaching tool than its absence would.
I also don’t understand why the burden of paying for the continuing storage of the mural now falls on the artist’s estate or her heirs rather than on the library or town. At the very least, another storage option needs to be found until a better, more deserving solution can be determined.